The most obvious, and useful, white magic is the cure and heal families. These and the Life spells will probably be used more than all other spells combined. Not only are white mages/wizards fantastic curers, they are very effective against the undead. In addition to the Dia family of spells, the white wizard is the only character than can use holy, a white spell that is one of the most powerful spells in the game, against the living and undead.

Suffixes that tell you more about a spell's power or ability. As spells get more powerful, suffixes distinguish them from similar spells in the same family.

-na: Removes a status ailment

-ra: More powerful than the original.

-ga: Even more powerful than "-ra".

-ja: The highest level of power.

Many mid and high levels spells are not unique, but are improved versions of low levels spells. Each "family" of spells usually contains three versions, though some have two or four.

Cure family: Restores a [relatively] large amount of HP to one character

Heal family: Restores small amounts of HP to the entire party at once

Life family: Revives a dead character

Dia family: Damages the undead, ineffective against the living/inanimate

Nul family: Reduces damage from (or nullifies) one type of element, death spells, or all elements

Protect family: Raises defense and evasion

There are several other spells that do not belong in a specific family, but tend to be focused on boosting the party's stats or removing status ailments. The exception is Holy, which is a powerful offensive spell.

Spells are listed under the Dawn of Souls and Anniversary names. These may differ from the original names given to the spells in the NES version, and from the updated names in Origins. Spell MP cost refers to the amount of MP required to cast a spell in the Dawn of Souls and Anniversary editions. All versions prior to that simply require one allocation of spell casting for their respective levels.

All Level 3 spells are sold in Elfheim and cost 1500 Gil to purchase (or 1000 Gil in the Easy Mode and GBA versions).

Heal can be cast for free by using the Healing staff or the Healing helm as an item. Diara can be cast for free by using the Light axe as an item. The Ice armor and the Ice shield automatically reduce fire damage as if they were embedded with NulBlaze.

The following tables are for quick reference, once you got familiar with the contents above. The class abbreviations are as follows: wW = White Mage and White Wizard; rR = Red Mage and Red Wizard; K = Knight.

Lv

Spell names (NES/PSX/GBA)

MP

Type & Target

Effect

wW

rR

K

Item

1

Cure/Cure1/Cure

3

Field/supports one

Restores HP

wW

rR

K

-

1

Fog/Shld1/Protect

3

Supports one

Raises Defense

wW

rR

K

-

1

Ruse/Blink/Blink

3

Supports caster

Raises Evasion

wW

R

K

Defender sword

1

Harm/Dia1/Dia

5

Attacks all

Damages undead enemies

wW

-

-

-

2

Lamp/Lamp/Blindna

3

Supports one

Cures "blind" status

wW

rR

K

-

2

Invs/Invs1/Invis

3

Supports one

Raises Evasion

wW

rR

K

-

2

Mute/Silence/Silence

5

Debuffs all

Inflicts "mute" status

wW

rR

K

-

2

ALit/NulBolt/NulShock

8

Supports all

Reduces lightning-elemental damage

wW

rR

K

-

3

AFire/NulFire/NulBlaze

8

Supports all

Reduces fire-elemental damage

wW

rR

K

Ice armor & shield

3

Cur2/Cure2/Cura

10

Field/supports one

Restores HP

wW

rR

K

-

3

Hrm2/Dia2/Diara

8

Attacks all

Damages undead enemies

wW

-

-

Light axe

3

Heal/Heal/Heal

10

Field/supports all

Restores HP

wW

-

-

Healing staff & helm

4

Pure/Esuna/Poisona

3

Field/supports one

Cures "poison" status

wW

rR

-

-

4

AIce/NulIce/NulFrost

8

Supports all

Reduces ice-elemental damage

wW

rR

-

Flame armor & shield

4

AMut/Vox/Vox

3

Supports one

Cures "mute" status

wW

R

-

-

4

Fear/Fear/Fear

10

Debuffs all

Enemies flee

wW

-

-

-

5

Cur3/Cure3/Curaga

20

Field/supports one

Restores HP

wW

rR

-

-

5

Life/Life1/Life

20

Field/supports one

Revives dead ally

wW

rR

-

-

5

Hel2/Heal2/Healara

25

Field/supports all

Restores HP

wW

-

-

-

5

Hrm3/Dia3/Diaga

25

Attacks all

Damages undead enemies

wW

-

-

-

6

Exit/Warp2/Exit

20

Field

Warps outside dungeon

wW

R

-

-

6

Inv2/Invs2/Invisira

25

Supports all

Raises Evasion

wW

R

-

White robe

6

Fog2/Shld2/Protera

20

Supports all

Raises Defense

W

R

-

-

6

Soft/Stona/Stona

10

Field/supports one

Cures "stone" status

wW

-

-

-

7

ARub/NulMgc/NulDeath

28

Supports all

Prevents "instant-death"

wW

R

-

Protect Ring

7

Hel3/Heal3/Healaga

28

Field/supports all

Restores HP

wW

-

-

-

7

Cur4/Cure4/Curaja

35

Field/supports one

Restores HP

W

-

-

-

7

Hrm4/Dia4/Diaja

35

Attacks all

Damages undead enemies

W

-

-

-

8

Wall/NulAll/NulAll

40

Supports one

Reduces any elemental damage

W

-

-

Dragon mail

8

Xfer/Dispel/Dispel

35

Debuffs one

Removes special defenses

W

-

-

-

8

Lif2/Life2/Full-Life

50

Field/supports one

Revives and restores HP

W

-

-

-

8

Fade/Holy/Holy

50

Attacks all

Damages any enemy

W

-

-

-

The following table shows spell prices and magic shop locations for each level of White Magic:

White magic is, for the most part, very useful - even more so than black magic. Your White Mage/Wizard will be your biggest assest since even though a Knight may only lose 1HP per hit, it adds up quickly if you don't have any way of healing, and there are plenty of enemies that can do 100+ damage to even a high level Knight. The Cures, Dias, Nuls, and Lifes are useful for both regular fights and boss fights. Poison and Stone are very, very common status aliments and using spells will save you money on items. For the stronger bosses, you'll find yourself casting Invs2 and Shld2 almost as much as Cure spells.

Protect (Fog) isn't worth buying because it only raises your defense by 8 points. Blink only works on the caster, but it is powerful and there are a lot of times when you need your healer alive more than any other character. Cure is an obvious choice and Dia is good to have as well since you will be fighting a lot of undead for quite a while.

Blindna (Lamp) is a waste of money because the effect wears off after the end of a battle, few enemies cause Dark, and the aliment doesn't actually do much to stop your attacks. Silence doesn't work against too many enemies, but is still preferable over Blindna. Invis is good, but only works on one character, so it should generally be saved for boss fights. NulShock is a must have, and is useful throughout the game.

By the time you get to Elfheim, Cure will do very little, so you'll want to upgrade to Cura as soon as possible. Get Diara as well, since the number of undead monsters that you encounter is only going to increase. Like NulShock, NulBlaze is a must have that will be useful throughout the game. Heal restores very little HP and is generally not worth sacrificing one of the other spells. If you feel you really need it, give up Diara and simply use Fira against the undead (assuming you have a Black Magic caster).

Most will want Poisona eventually for the convenience of dealing with poisoning, but since it costs more than 50 pure potions would, it's not really cost-effective early on. However, although certainly an investment, it will pay itself off eventually, and is a very useful spell. As with the other Nuls, NulFrost is a necessary spell to have. Fear is pretty useless since it only works on really weak enemies which you wouldn't waste spells on anyway. Vox is only useful in a very few battles throughout the game, but it is a better choice than Fear.

Level 5 forces you to make a tough decision. There are a lot of powerful undead monsters throughout the game, including Lich, so Diaga is likely to come in handy, but not required. Curaga is obviously going to be a great asset. In the original version of the game, Life is a necessity. However, in Dawn of Souls, it is less valuable because you can get Phoneix Downs. Healara is a passable spell but rarely superior to Curaga. A bug in the original version of the game, however, causes Healara to behave like the more powerful Healaga, but only in battle.

The spells on this level are all somewhat useful so which you choose may depend on your playing style and which version you play. Stona (Soft) is a convenient spell but as with the anti-poision spell above it is not really cost-effective as opposed to buying 25 soft potions with the same money. Protera and Invisira are both useful since they boost the stats of the entire party at once, which makes a world of difference against the Fiends and Chaos. Exit is a must-have; the Black magic Teleport (Warp) is almost as good and cheaper to cast but in the late game you will want to have multiple exit-dungeon options available to you, and the white magic version is the only one that can be truly relied on.

Curaja restores 100% of a characters HP and is really the only spell you need from this level; as the HP of your characters rise it becomes more and more potent. Diaja is good, but not necessary since by this point in the game all of the undead you face can get torn apart by Fire spells and physical attacks from fighters. Healaga is useful at times, as unlike the other heal spells it restores a significant amount of HP, and many of the later enemies can hit all four characters at once. NulDeath may be useful in one or two places; although Protect Rings may protect against instant death, they only provide protection, not full immunity.

Surprisingly enough only Full-life is really necessary; like Curaja, it becomes stronger the higher the HP of your party members and eventually you will find yourself saving all your level8 casts for it. Holy is a fairly strong attack that works against everything. NulAll casts all five of the previous Nul spells, but since it only targets one character it is rarely or never superior to casting the lower-level Nul spells. Disple is surprisingly useless since so few enemies use status enhancements (Chaos uses Haste but he rarely uses physical attacks) so it isn't really worth bothering with.

Since a Red Mage can only equip three spells of each level, on many levels the Red will have to forego some useful spells; fortunately there are not many instances where there are more than three "must have" spells that the Red Wizard can learn. Additionally, there are a lot of white spells that are very useful that the Red Wizard cannot cast; Curaja and Full-life in particular are irreplaceable. For these reasons it is not recommended that you replace a White Wizard with a Red Wizard unless you know what you're doing.

Generally the magic that the Red Wizard should learn is the same as the other Wizards, however a lot of it depends on if there is another Black, Red, or White Wizard in the party. Please see the Red Magicians' magic page for recomendations based on party configuration.

The Knight can only learn the first three levels of white magic, and most of them are fairly useless by the time you get the class change. The Knight can't learn Dia or Heal spells either, further limiting his usefulness as a magic user. The Nul spells are good to have throughout the game, and Cure can be used before boss fights so your characters are at full health and you don't use up the Wizards' magic. However, during battles, the Knight should almost always be fighting so you will spend very little time actually casting spells.

These are the only three level1 spells you can get and they're practically free, so grab them. Cure is the only one you'll really use though, outside of combat to heal your characters. Blink might appear to be useful as an extra 80 points of evasion on one of your front-line characters can save some damage, but the knight should rarely ever take a round off from attacking to cast it.

A knight can only use two of the four level 3 spells, but both are useful, even towards the end of the game. In long dungeons remember to use your Cure and Cura spells and conserve healing potions. NulBlaze, like NulShock, is likely to be used against late-game bosses where you want to get as many protective spells out in the first round as possible.

Nul spells are defensive white magic, three of which (NulBlaze, NulFrost, and NulShock) reduce elemental damage by 50% for the entire party. These three spells are absolutely essential and should be learned by at least one, and preferably two or three characters; against Chaos for instance you will want to cast all three in the first round. NulDeath protects the whole party against instant-death spells, which are fairly uncommon but may come in handy in one or two battles. NulAll protects against all four type of magic, but can only be cast on one person at a time so is not likely ever to be chosen over the other four defensive spells.

The Heal family of spells is, in general, inferior to the Cure family. In most fights the goal is to keep each character alive, for which the hp recovery from Heal spells is not sufficient. Eventually, you'll get a Heal Staff/Heal Helms which casts Heal on your party for free.

Protect and Invis spells can be stacked, so repeated castings continually raise your stats. During boss fights, if the Mage/Wizard isn't healing, they should be casting Protera or Invisira.

Poisona and Stona are nice to have, but not cost-effective until you have excess money to purchase them. At this point you should carry Antidotes and Golden Needles/Soft potions anyway, in case you run out of spell uses or your white caster is disabled.

Dia spells are very useful early on, especially when going through the Terra Cave. Just keep in mind that (in the original) every Dia spell cast is one less Cure spell that you can use. After the Cave the number of undead decreases significantly and eventually you get items that can cast Diara.